As cardinals prepare to elect the next Pope, one Michigan cardinal is in Vatican City to assist with pre-conclave discussions.

Detroit Archbishop Emeritus Cardinal Adam Maida celebrated Mass on Sunday in Rome, according to the Archbishop of Detroit's blog. Maida, 82, is too old to elect a new pope but is in the Vatican to help with discussions leading up to the conclave. Maida was the Detroit archbishop from 1990 to 2009.

On Tuesday, 115 cardinals under the age of 80 are expected to begin the process to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, who was the first Holy Father to resign in 600 years. The cardinals will be housed in a guesthouse and will not leave or have any communication with the outside world until a new pope is picked. The cardinals will vote daily and ballots are burned in a stove with a chimney. If there is no new pope, the smoke is black. When it's white, it means a new pope is picked.

It is unclear how long the process will last.

While Maida cannot vote for the new pope, he told the Detroit Free Press that he is looking forward to meeting other cardinals and talking about the issues that face the church.

“Every cardinal is asked to say what he wants about the needs of the church,” Maida said in an interview with the Free Press. “To be part of the discussion is very important. We don’t know everybody. We don’t all know each other. That all surfaces and gets vetted in the context of these conversations.”

Michigan has a second cardinal, Edmund Szoka, who was the Archbishop of Detroit from 1981 to 1990. Szoka will not attend the ceremony due to health reasons, the Free Press reports.

While both Maida and Szoka are too old to elect the new pope, they both voted for Benedict in 2005.